Understanding the Performance Analyzer and Its Data

The Performance Analyzer reads the event data that is collected by the Collector
and converts it into performance metrics. The metrics are computed for various elements
in the structure of the target program, such as instructions, source lines, functions,
and load objects. In addition to a header containing a timestamp, thread id,
LWP id, and CPU id, the data recorded for each event collected has
two parts:

Some event-specific data that is used to compute metrics

A call stack of the application that is used to associate those metrics with the program structure

The process of associating the metrics with the program structure is not always
straightforward, due to the insertions, transformations, and optimizations made by the compiler. This
chapter describes the process and discusses the effect on what you see in
the Performance Analyzer displays.